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I have been to every Women, Action, and Media conference except one (I had to miss last year's because of a scheduling conflict, and it just about broke my heart), and this one was the best ever. Put on by the Center for New Words, WAM 2008 gathered 600 feminist activists and media folk to discuss, analyze, and strategize.

Among panels (too many of which I couldn't go to because there were just so many great sessions) on blogging against racism, the urgent need for more feminist coverage of immigration, surprising (and not-so-surprising) news about women in gaming, media representation of sex work, and so much more (links are to panel presenters with one obvious exception), there was a whole bunch of talking and talking and talking.

Some of my personal highlights of the weekend were the people I got to meet, most especially Deanne Cuellar from the Texas Media Empowerment Project, who talked hard-core media policy strategy with me and showed me pictures of her cats on her iPhone (yes, I started it by showing her my cat pics); Megan and Stacey May from Shameless, who gratifyingly almost peed their pants with excitement when I told them how much we all fought over the first issue of their mag when it came to our office; and the two young women who drove all the way to Boston from their Christian college in Kentucky and told me all about the controversial editorals they've been writing about the idiocy of abstinence-only sex education and the like.

In short, WAM was a kick-ass movement-building experience, and it just gets better every year.

(Update: I just saw that brownfemipower posted the full text of her speech from the immigration panel. It's a must-read. Seriously. Right now this minute.)